Electronic and magnetic properties of nanographite ribbons

Abstract

Electronic and magnetic properties of ribbon-shaped nanographite systems with zigzag and armchair edges in a magnetic field are investigated by using a tight-binding model. One of the most remarkable features of these systems is the appearance of edge states, strongly localized near zigzag edges. The edge state in a magnetic field, generating a rational fraction of the magnetic flux $(\ensuremath{\varphi}=p/q)$ in each hexagonal plaquette of the graphite plane, behaves like a zero-field edge state with q internal degrees of freedom. The orbital diamagnetic susceptibility strongly depends on the edge shapes. The reason is found in the analysis of the ring currents, which are very sensitive to the lattice topology near the edge. Moreover, the orbital diamagnetic susceptibility is scaled as a function of the temperature, Fermi energy, and ribbon width. Because the edge states lead to a sharp peak in the density of states at the Fermi level, the graphite ribbons with zigzag edges show Curie-like temperature dependence of the Pauli paramagnetic susceptibility. Hence, there is a crossover from high-temperature diamagnetic to low-temperature paramagnetic behavior in the magnetic susceptibility of nanographite ribbons with zigzag edges.